Christoph Hamsen
Senior Software Engineer at Datadog
Hamburg, Germany
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolChristoph Hamsen is a Senior Software Engineer and IT security specialist based in Hamburg, blending a PhD in quantum optics with eight years of professional software and security experience and over a decade in international teams. He currently works on Software Integrity and Trust at Datadog after leading security strategy and SecOps teams at SSE, where he also maintained Connaisseur, an open-source Kubernetes admission controller for container image signature verification. His background ranges from optoelectronic systems and robotics data science to cloud-native application security, giving him a rare ability to translate complex research-grade problems into practical, automated security solutions. Christoph is especially skilled at embedding security early in the development lifecycle and democratizing secure practices across organizations, often acting as interim Head of Security for regulated industries. Colleagues value his curiosity-driven approach that combines experimental rigor with pragmatic engineering.
8 years of coding experience
13 years of employment as a software developer
Abitur/High School Diploma, Abitur/High School Diploma at Märkisches Gymnasium HammDr. rer. nat. (PhD) Physics / Quantum Optics, Dr. rer. nat. (PhD) Physics / Quantum Optics at Max Planck Institute of Quantum OpticsMaster of Science Physics (Engineering Physics), Master of Science Physics (Engineering Physics) at Technical University of MunichBachelor of Science Physics (Engineering Physics), Bachelor of Science Physics (Engineering Physics) at Technische Universität Ilmenau
Github Skills (123)
parser10
controller10
python10
signature-verification10
authentication10
cosign10
security10
profiling10
ruby-client10
stream-processing10
kubernetes-cluster10
signing10
ecdsa10
pipeline10
rust10
Programming languages (17)
Github contributions (5)
semgr8ns/semgr8s
Apr 2023 - Jan 2025
Semgrep-based Policy Controller for Kubernetes
Contributions:1 review, 247 PRs, 360 pushes in 1 year 9 months
admission-webhookkubernetespolicy-controllerpythonsemgrep
sse-secure-systems/connaisseur
Aug 2020 - Jan 2023
An admission controller that integrates Container Image Signature Verification into a Kubernetes cluster
Contributions:6 releases, 766 reviews, 223 commits in 2 years 5 months
controllersignatureprovenanceintegritysignature-verification
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